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New Yorkers are fearing the impending April 2019 shutdown of the Manhattan to Brooklyn L subway line. The contract for Hurricane Sandy repairs spanning the train tracks between 8th Avenue and Bedford Ave, Williamsburg, was awarded two years ago and plan to last at least 15 months, ending by August 2020.

The issue has been a hot topic among local politicians who are generally pushing for alternative travel routes including other subway lines, a new inter-borough bus line, and expansion of select bus services.

The L train services over 400,000 commuters daily with at least 250,000 depending the line to travel between the connecting boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

75% – 85% of commuters will be shunted to other subway lines. The M and J lines connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn will bear the brunt the burden, with the G suffering on its connections going up to Queens.

The MTA admits 75% is the ideal target to avoid overcrowding. They have not yet released specific plans on how frequently trains will be running to accommodate all the new riders.

Only between 5% – 15% of riders are estimated to use a proposed inter-borough shuttle bus service. This is where plans get messy. THERE IS NO DIRECT SHUTTLEBUS ROUTE PLANNED IN BETWEEN 8TH AVENUE AND BEDFORD AVE.

As you can see, the shuttle buses will run from Grand St. L stop to no further than Prince St./Broadway. This means if you want to get from Bedford Avenue to 8th Avenue you will have to transfer 3 times in between shuttle buses, subways, and select bus service.

The rest of anticipated ridership will consist of ferries, bicycles, and taxis. The MTA has not yet released plans for increases in ferry ridership.

The Democratic Primaries this year fall on September 12, 2017. When you vote please pay close attention to the travel agendas of your city council candidates. Hopefully, local politicians can address this mess of a plan and fight to keep New York City’s subways running effectively and efficiently.

It’s no secret that DC movies haven’t been doing well lately. So when I saw that Rotten Tomatoes gave “Suicide Squad” at 27% fresh rating, and after witnessing the monstrous trainwreck that was “Batman v Superman,” I wasn’t exactly jumping out of my seat to see it. But I had a DC comic-lover friend that really wanted to go and I was bored that day. I also thoroughly enjoyed the trailer music soundtrack.

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Here’s what I have to say to some common criticisms of the movie:

There wasn’t enough Joker.

This is the main critique I’ve been seeing all over the place. Jared Leto’s name is on the poster but he wasn’t in the film. Well, I saw the film from beginning to end and felt there was plenty of Leto’s Joker in it, considering the focus of the film was about, dur, the Suicide Squad.

This is not a Batman movie. It was never marketed as a Batman movie. Yes, Batman makes a cameo, but he doesn’t fight the Joker nor should he. The Joker isn’t a member of the Suicide Squad, so it makes entire sense for him to be relegated to a secondary character.

There was an introductory scene with him and Harley Quinn in Arkham Asylum. There was a weird bar scene that illustrated the Joker’s cruel and mercurial nature. And there were a couple more scenes with him and Harley Quinn that highlighted their twisted, co-dependent relationship. Quinn is the main character and I felt the amount of appearances for the Joker was just the right amount so as to not overshadow her.

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The music sucked.

“We haven’t even gotten to the distracting use of on-the-nose musical selections to introduce each character… Each song inspires a groan and takes you right out of the action.” –Rogerebert.com

Oh, shut the fuck up. If having appropriate music is “distracting” to you, you should watch a Tarantino flick and then shoot yourself in the head.

The soundtrack had everything from Skrillex to a Panic! at the Disco cover of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” They are upbeat, catchy songs to compliment sarcastic, quirky characters. I don’t feel like covers of classic songs create a cliché, rather they set the tone for a new rendition of old comic book characters.

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The film jumped around too much.

Yes, there were extensive uses of flashbacks in the film. There were, after all, between six and seven members of the Suicide Squad at one time. I don’t see a more efficient way to introduce and characterize them all.

As for the editing, I rather liked it. I don’t think it was sloppy or choppy. I felt like it created a fast-paced, yet still digestible, narrative that made for a solid action film plot. There was a lot going on, but I feel like I was able to distinguish all the characters and keep their personalities in mind without getting too muddled.

The film was two hours, but it was well enough paced that time flew by smoothly.

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The villain was stupid or lame.

“She couldn’t arrange better special effects for herself, however; at the height of her powers, the threat she creates looks hilariously cheesy.” -Rogerebert.com

Yes, there’s a supervillian who hates humanity and wants a combination of domination and destruction. But what superhero movie isn’t that?

The Enchantress is an ancient witch with various dark powers. She can summon zombie-like minions, teleport, and manipulate the movement of matter and energy. I, for one, was just happy to see a female supervillian. She does bring her equally supernatural brother along for the evil ride, but it was nice to see a supervillian family working together for once.

I saw nothing out of the ordinary with the special effects. When she transforms from her possessed alter ego June Moone into The Enchantress, black fingers slip out from her own and then take her over, casting a smoky-like shadow around her body.

Sure she wears practically a bikini, but this is a relatively minor feminist sin. She is still a powerful, evil figure and a convincing antagonist in a movie full of anti-heroes.

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So overall…

I came into the theater with really low expectations and was pleasantly surprised. “Suicide Squad” was pretty on par with what the trailers advertised, was well-cast, decently-acted, and delivered entertaining action sequences. There was a certain amount of chaos I’ll admit, but this seemed entirely appropriate for the themes the movie was trying to present. If I was the filmmaker and somebody called “Suicide Squad” “messy,” I would take it as a compliment.

I would consider myself largely a failure at life. I barely graduated high school on time (I was almost held back twice for medical absences.), I dropped out of college, and I have had a mental breakdown at nearly every job I have ever held. I feel like there a couple kinds of depression: There’s normal person depression, which consists of going through life in a foggy haze, never knowing which way is up, but pushing forward nonetheless; and then there’s my kind of depression, where I can’t leave the house for up to 6 months at time and I drop to 90 pounds because I physically cannot eat. Being a failure at life entails lots of unpleasantness and deviations from normal person milestones. It also involves dealing with the faceless bureaucracies known colloquially known as “welfare.”

I first applied for welfare in New Jersey when I was around 20. By this time, I had driven the full scholarship I had to community college into the ground and had quit a near-minimum wage retail job. I applied for the trifecta of welfare: cash assistance (TANF), Medicaid, and food stamps (SNAP). I applied online and shortly after received a letter for an interview.

The Morris County Office of Temporary Assistance is a sad brown 1-story building located next to a Juvenile Detention Facility. In this sad building I waited about a half an hour in a sad line with lots of sad babies and their sad mothers just to speak to the receptionist so I could be directed to line of chairs in a sad hallway where I would wait another half hour and then then be directed to my second to last destination—a super sad, medium-sized waiting room.

My appointment was scheduled at 1 PM. I had shown up 15 minutes early. It was 2PM by the time I got to the waiting room. A thin 30-something guy with glasses walks in from the purgatory hallway and sits across from me.

I sit across from Tourette’s guy for three more hours. He only has one tic and its name is “Meh!” There are no magazines, only a television with local news playing. There are children of various ages playing with each other interrupted every couple minutes by a stuttering “Meh!” and a rehearsed explanation for the people that just walked in.

Around 5 PM I finally get my interview and I teeter in the room feeling like I just had to listen to “What’s New Pussy Cat” for three hours. The worker who processes me looks like she was fresh out of college but the real world had quickly beat her into submission. Monotone and empty-eyed she leads me through the process, which is mostly just me signing multiple statements that I won’t commit fraud.

About another month later I receive my EBT card. Food stamps are generous enough—about $200 a month, but the cash assistance is only $70. Apparently, the state of New Jersey believes that a person can live off of $840 a year.

A couple years later I move to New York and apply for welfare here. There was a similar 5-hour long appointment for the meager cash allotment of $70 a month. There is a 24-month lifetime limit on cash assistance, so I ran that out pretty quickly. Conservatives and libertarians who believe that moochers can live comfortably off welfare indefinitely are sadly mistaken.

What I should have done at this point is apply for disability on the federal level. But instead I foolishly tried to work another retail job. This ended badly and I then spent the next couples years racking up hefty credit card bills while paying off the minimum on my meager savings.

The time comes every 6 months to renew my food stamps (SNAP). Well, one of these times I get a letter saying I did not send documents that I did in fact send. My food stamps get cut off. I’m pretty heavily in a depressive episode at this point so I just mope around and put my food expenses on my credit cards. Eventually I work up the courage to go to the sad building of endless waiting lines once again. I bring my documents, wait another month, and finally get my food stamps reinstated.

6 months later I have to re-certify again. I don’t have to go the sad building (thank god) but I do have a phone interview scheduled to complete the re-certification. The day comes for the phone interview and no one ever calls. If I don’t re-certify by the end of the month I’ll have my food stamps cut off again. I call the general help number on the re-certification letter to try and get help for the situation. No one picks up and it goes to a voice mailbox that’s full. I call four more times over the next two days. No one ever picks up and it goes to the voicemail that won’t take messages. I find the number for the state human resources department and call Albany. They transfer me several times to someone who says they’ll call me back. Luckily, someone does call back in a few days and gives me a new appointment. The appointment is close to the date I’ll get food stamps cut off which makes me nervous. I do get a phone call early for the interview, although it is on a day that is nowhere near the appointment. I’m luckily available and finish the process.

These days I have everything I need except money. I am currently applying for Supplemental Security Income (Social Security), which would have me certified disabled. The unfortunate part about the entire disability process is that it takes about two years. Pretty much everyone agrees that this is ridiculous. Disabled people obviously can’t work, and while I usually can hold a shitty job for a couple months before my inevitable spiral back into depression, I’m sure the Social Security people would flag me as non-disabled if I did a stint. So right now I’m just kinda withering in poverty..

I applied for SSI a year ago, was rejected, and am currently in the process of appealing the denial. I’m also trying to find a disability lawyer who will take my case, but the legal aid program I’m trying to get into has failed to communicate with me about whether they’ll take my case. (They’ve been “reviewing” my medical documents for five months.) I’m looking for a better legal aid program or maybe a trustworthy private attorney.

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So that’s been my situation for the last few years. This is also my first autobiographical blog post in a while. Sorry if it wasn’t that interesting; it’s hard to make a post about tedious things non-tedious, I plan on doing a couple non-autobiographical posts in the future, maybe some political commentary or something. I was briefly considering letting my domain registration lapse, but, thanks to a donation from a friend, Clantily Scad will live on at least another year.

When you don’t sleep for several days, you start to hallucinate. Some people it’s visual, they start seeing things move that aren’t there. For me, it was the auditory sense that started going first. I heard chanting in the fan—deep, guttural, alien chanting.

When I was able to fall asleep it was for two hours maximum and there were no dreams. I continued like that for a while, sleeping only one or two hours every two days. The physical discomfort slowly became too much. All my muscles hurt. It was hard to eat hold food down. There was nothing but pain ahead. The time to end it all had come.

I tried to hang myself from the disability bar in the bathroom. I used ¼” thick nylon rope and made a simple slip knot. I didn’t even try breathing so I don’t know if it was enough to occlude the airways. But what it didn’t do was work in cutting off the blood supply to and from the brain. (In chokeholds, the trick to make people pass out fast is to occlude both the carotid artery and jugular vein.) I let my body drop hoping the pressure would be enough to choke myself out. It wasn’t. I wasn’t counting how long I hung, but it was obvious I wasn’t anywhere close to losing consciousness. I gave up. I cried in the bathtub with noose around my neck.

I had bruising around my neck and hurt to swallow for several days. I didn’t even try to hide it. Long hair and unobservant mom and boyfriend were enough.

If my next shipment of ambien hadn’t come in during the next couple days I probably would have tried again. Something more drastic and reckless probably like try to stab myself in the neck. I told the person who mailed it to me that they saved my life. I wasn’t exaggerating.